Description: Protecting her sister, Julie calls in a favor from her friend Eddie down at the precinct to check out Glenn Sabine. Meanwhile, Eve shows up for acting lessons, day one.
The Miss Teenager Pageant. PART 26.
Living in a small town like Devon came with its perks. Sure, neighbors butted into each other’s business more often than not, and a high school graduate who got into Yale would become the town celebrity, but the real advantage was the intimate friendships. You were friends with the bank manager, the mailman, the hotdog vendor on the street corner, your hair stylist who basically knew everybody, and the grocer down the way. Even the homeless man who wandered around Main Street knew your name.
And as friends, they were always ready to lend a helping hand.
Such was the case when Julie called in a favor from Eddie, her friend at the local precinct. Eddie was more than a casual acquaintance in town, however. In Devon, rumors spread like a California wildfire over bone dry desert tumbleweed. That Mr. Hoskins down at the bank liked to tell his customers that Julie and Eddie were kind of a “thing,” even though there was no evidence to the fact. She liked Eddie. Okay, yes, she admitted it. Gorgeous blue eyes and that uniform that was always kept perfectly ironed to the crease. Black shoes that sparkled in the sunlight like his eyes when they gazed into hers. But could they be a couple? Meh… He certainly liked her, that was true. Julie was hard to please, she would be the first to admit, but it was nice to know that she could always depend on him in a pinch.
Eddie picked up on the first ring.
Briefly, she filled him in on the situation. This was not about her and her feelings for Eddie, or his for her. This was about Eve falling into a potential trap. Julie was not one to sit idly by while some harebrained moron took advantage of her little sister. Eve was all too innocent and a babe in the woods when it came to… pretty much anything that she strongly desired. It was her way. She jumped in all too impulsively into the water of life, whether at the shallow or deep end, so to speak. So it stood to reason why she needed to be protected, Julie rationalized.
“Do whatever you can, Eddie,” Julie said into the phone at her office desk, tapping a pencil nervously on a notepad.
She had been scribbling Glenn Sabine’s smiling mug on the paper, or what she imagined he looked like, with a round red nose and makeup like Bozo the Clown.
“Last name S-A-B-I-N-E, huh?” repeated Eddie. “Okay, Julie, will do.”
Meanwhile, Eve had returned to the Devon House Hotel with her money. This was one investment she was sure would have lasting returns, perhaps for the rest of her life. Her dream of becoming an actress was finally taking shape.
Room 32 swung open and there was Mr. Sabine, all smiles and sparkling teeth. He was wearing a different suit from the day before, Eve noticed with a slight desperate attraction in her soft gasp.
“Ah – a magnificent entrance, my child!” he shouted in theater-mode again, extending his arm like he was the opening act and she was part of the show. “Did I not say this girl had a seventh sense, the dramatic sense, Pike?”
Pike was lazily reclining on the sofa in the room. “Yes,” Pike murmured with that couldn’t-care-less attitude again, “and frankly, I wish I’d said it.”
